Arab Isreal Conflict Essay Research Paper ArabIsraeli — страница 3

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lines on the west bank of the canal. In the north, Israel drove a wedge into the Syrian lines, giving it a foothold a few miles west of Damascus. After 18 days of fighting in the longest Arab-Israeli war since 1948, hostilities were again halted by the UN. The costs were the greatest in any battles fought since World War II. The Arabs lost some 2,000 tanks and more than 500 planes; the Israelis, 804 tanks and 114 planes. The 3-week war cost Egypt and Israel about $7 billion each, in material and losses from declining industrial production or damage. The political phase of the 1973 war ended with disengagement agreements accepted by Israel, Egypt, and Syria after negotiations in 1974 and 1975 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. KISSINGER. The agreements provided for Egyptian

reoccupation of a strip of land in Sinai along the east bank of the Suez Canal and for Syrian control of a small area around the Golan Heights town of Kuneitra. UN forces were stationed on both fronts to oversee observance of the agreements, which reestablished a political balance between Israel and the Arab confrontation states. Under the terms of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed on Mar. 26, 1979, Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt. Hopes for an expansion of the peace process to include other Arab nations waned, however, when Egypt and Israel were subsequently unable to agree on a formula for Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the 1980s regional tensions were increased by the activities of militant Palestinians and other Arab extremists

and by several Israeli actions. The latter included the formal proclamation of the entire city of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital (1980), the annexation of the Golan Heights (1981), the invasion of southern Lebanon (1982), and the continued expansion of Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Ch 32f